Public restrooms/bathrooms/toilets need not be bare, monotonous, and dull. Here are some of the more unique ones. No foot-tapping permitted in these though.
Monthly Archives: October 2007
Destroyed by its own beauty
The challenge for all cities with a rich architectural legacy is to find a balance between preserving the historical identity without becoming a slave to it.
The Super Spatial Blog writes on Venice calling it a city that was destroyed by its own beauty by turning in to essentially “a theme park for hordes of visitors.”
Mukesh Ambani's Antilia Residence
Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest person is building a monstrous residence in the heart of densely-populated Mumbai. The structure is 490 feet tall and includes a corporate meeting facility along with his 35,000 square feet of private residence. Arzan however is impressed by the architectural aspects of the structure which might change the way high rises are built in dense Indian cities.
Zero Emission Tower in Dubai
Dubai is home not only to most construction cranes building skyscapers but also to the world’s first zero emissions 322 meter tall structure. The Burj Al-Taqa Energy Tower will “use sun, wind, and water to create all of its own energy.”
The Green Collar
“Try this experiment. Go knock on someone’s door in West Oakland, Watts or Newark and say: ‘We gotta really big problem!’ They say: ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta really big problem!’ ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta save the polar bears! You may not make it out of this neighborhood alive, but we gotta save the polar bears!’ ”
Thomas Friedman writes about including the minority low-income populations in the ‘green movement’. Imposing conservation and sustainability on people usually doesn’t work. Rather you have to make the case that it is beneficial to them in the long run. Only then will they listen. Just like the corporations listened when it affected not only their image but also their bottomline.
A Toilet-shaped House
I know that the toilet bowl in one heck of a sculptural design piece but why would you design a house to look like it?
A Manhattan Wal-Mart
The total area occupied by all Wal-Mart stores is equal to the area of Manhattan. Now you wouldn’t want to live in a ‘Manhattan’ of Wal-Mart, would you?
The bed that fits in a bookcase
Questia Online Library
One of the first things I noticed when I came to the United States for my graduate education was the ubiquity of online resources. The Internet back home in India was still a novelty and its potential for educational resources was extremely limited.
Questia Online Library is an example of one such online library that gives you access to a large collection of books and journal articles in the fields of humanities and social sciences. The database also includes magazines and newspaper articles and is searchable by title, author, subject, and keyword.
One of the impressive options in Questia is the availability of online tools that enable users to create footnotes, bibliographical references, and hyperlinking across titles. I cannot overemphasize the importance of such tools that not only recreate the way you would use physical resources but also enhance your experience in using online tools in order to help you maintain a list of resources you accessed. One more additional feature that impressed me was the availability of more than 5000 books in online format. These books are public domain books whose copyright has expired hence are available to read for free in their entirety. No more buying expensive books or looking them up in libraries. You can use all the above mentioned reference tools in these books as well.
Crickets chirping in your city blocks
What do you do when neighborhood change is making it expensive for you to live in? Hide small sound devices in containers around the block to “keep your voice in the neighborhood”, of course.